Earlier this month, Options partnered with leading security provider, Observable Networks, to provide better network security for clients. To help you understand why this partnership is so important – and how it will help Options clients protect their most sensitive data – we thought we’d take a closer look at three IT trends that make legacy security solutions obsolete. This article will also demonstrate how Observable’s solution, Dynamic Endpoint Modeling, overcomes flaws these traditional security tools can’t address.

Three Trends that Cause Legacy Solutions to Fall Short

Today, IT and security professionals rely on a number of common security tools to attempt to stop hackers and adversaries from breaching their networks. These include firewalls, antivirus, malware-removal systems, intrusion-detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), and more. While these systems are important – and comprise a valuable security solution – they simply can’t address three trends that are reshaping the security industry today.

Here is a closer look at these three trends, and the challenges they pose.

Trend #1: Data Encryption Everywhere

Companies everywhere are increasing their use of encryption, in a commendable effort to protect the privacy of network communications. By some estimates, encrypted data now makes up between 25 and 35 percent of total network traffic. But ironically, increased use of encryption often results in decreased effectiveness of many other network-security tools.

Why is this? Many IDS/IPS solutions, next-generation firewalls, and other payload-analysis tools rely on the ability to “look inside” network conversations to see if malware is present. But the technique of deep packet inspection (DPI) can be bypassed by encrypted network flows, which make payloads invisible to DPI-based analysis.

For IT and security managers, the IoT trend poses a tactical challenge to securely connect their networks to many devices such as printers, cameras, manufacturing-control devices, and even thermostats and smoke detectors. It also poses the strategic challenge of identifying, and responding to, the vulnerabilities that arise when so many of these devices attempt to communicate with the network.

Trend #3: Bring Your Own (Unsecured) Device

Just think about how many employees, contractors, business partners, and other users bring their own devices and connect to the corporate network. Most organizations today are experiencing growth in unmanaged devices, and cyber-attackers are working hard at leveraging the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend to thwart perimeter defenses. The proliferation of devices – each of which bears its own operating system, applications, data, and method of connecting to the corporate network – makes it all but impossible for IT and security managers to know where all of their vulnerabilities are.

New Solutions for Changing Times

These three trends are inadvertently creating an environment of heightened security risk, which could be especially devastating in the global capital markets industry. Observable Networks’ Dynamic Endpoint Modeling provides a new, better approach that overcomes the challenges posed by these trends and improves network security.

With endpoint modeling technology, financial services organisations can understand the normal behaviour for every device on their network. Then, if devices deviate from legitimate behaviour, IT and security professionals can identify those indicators faster, allowing them to investigate, identify, and remediate potential threats – more efficiently and effectively than ever before.